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BSAC Instructor Crossover Course

Why would you want to teach BSAC?

1: Commercial Advantage

BSAC is unique.

Historically BSAC was based on a branch system. Unlike other diver certification agencies, BSAC members enter a local community of divers. This means BSAC members are more active divers, and have greater allegiance towards other BSAC Branches and Dive Centres.

There are large numbers of active BSAC Members in the UK, Middle East, Japan, Korea and Thailand. By becoming a BSAC professional you’ll have unrestricted access to market your training and trips to these tens of thousands of BSAC Members, through channels not available to non-BSAC schools.

BSAC Training is the choice of the UK Armed forces, plus universities in the UK and Thailand. By becoming a BSAC professional you’ll have access to large markets not available to non-BSAC schools.

2. Quality Training and Breadth of Experience

Many hundreds of thousands of divers have trained with BSAC for over 60 years.

Diver training has evolved but BSAC philosophy has always been to produce highly competent self-reliant divers with excellent knowledge and practical skills and with safety considerations uppermost.

Course Overview

The requirement for attending the BSAC Instructor crossover course is that you are an Instructor from any agency other than BSAC and working in a centre where BSAC courses are to be offered. Knowledge of other diving agencies and how they work is useful as it will give you a greater understanding of how elements fit in across the different agencies.

It must be emphasized that the crossover course Instructor examiner, is not there to assess your instructing ability but rather to acquaint you with the BSAC methodology and knowledge so that you will have the tools to be able to deliver BSAC diving courses; mainly Ocean Diver, Sports Diver and Dive Leader. There are however, a couple of assessments on the Oxygen Administration section within the course.

The course duration is 4 days and covers the following elements:

9 theory lessons

4 practical lessons

The course starts with a series of orientation lessons which introduces the Instructor to BSAC and how it operates, Diver grades, BSAC dive tables, BSAC teaching methodology etc. In the latter there will be a series of theory classroom lessons. In these lessons the Course Instructor will demonstrate a typical classroom presentation showing you how to breakdown the lesson contents into small manageable steps, making complex topics simple to understand. You then will have a chance to present a 15 -20 minute classroom presentation using the prescribed method.

Oxygen Administration Instructor

All Instructors regardless of what agency they previously trained with will have been trained to be able to provide Basic Life Support to other divers/casualties, if required. However, not all of them will be trained and qualified to administrate Oxygen Therapy to divers suffering from some type of diving related injury. BSAC Thailand requires that all of our Instructors to not only to be trained in this area but also to be able to teach this important skill to their students. Therefore, in this course, we cover the Oxygen Administration training and assessments in order they can do this. As a result on completing these session you will be awarded the BSAC Oxygen Administration Instructor qualification.

Practical Sessions

The first practical session will be run by the course instructor, who will demonstrate a set of skills and how to progressively break them down. You may not have seen some of these skills as they may not be in your agency’s training program.

The second practical session, which will normally take place on day 2, is for you to have a go at a mini-teach of a skill you have seen previously. It is not uncommon for some of the ‘students’ to have not been in the water for a while and so it is a good refresher and ‘hands-on’ approach. On day three, you will run through some additional dry and wet practical lesson. These lessons will relate to lessons that may not have been covered in your previous dive agency training, lessons such as running a distance line, lifting a shot weight using lift bags, preparing Shotlines etc. All of these skills you will be teaching your students in Sports Diver and Dive Leader lessons.

Typical skills which will be demonstrated in ‘Sheltered Water’ include:

1. Control Buoyant Lift (CBL - some dive agencies do this skill completely differently so a good skill to learn)2. AS (Alternative Source) using different applications3. DSMB Deployment4. Distance Line Laying (relocating the shot line)

There will be an emphasis on the breakdown of skills, close proximity; double demos where necessary and surface control using SMB.At the end of Day 1 you will be asked to plan and prepare 2 lessons to give on Day 2 as a confirmation of the course. The lessons will be short, about 10 minutes.

The types of lesson are outlined below and all will have been taught or demonstrated on Day 1 by the Course Instructor.

1. CBL (Covered in Ocean Diver training)2. PADI CBL (Good for everyone to see a different way of doing it)3. DSMB Deployment (Covered in Sports Diver training)4. Line Laying (Covered in Sports Diver training)5. AS (Covered in Ocean Diver Training)6. Rescue Breathing

Materials

Each student will receive their own comprehensive course support pack which will include:

Course Entry Level

All candidates must produce proof of an equivalent instructor qualification from another diving agency. Also if the candidate already holds an oxygen instructor certification from another agency and/or any form of decompression training from another agency, these may also be shown. The course is designed to be adaptable from candidate to candidate so if you already have experience with oxygen and/or decompression procedures then this section of the course can be adapted to suit your experience levels.

Dive Leader crossover to BSAC Instructor

This course is designed for other diving professionals who are not yet Instructors and come from other agencies. These dive professionals should be at a similar dive grade to the equivalent of the BSAC Dive Leader. See the list below:

If your agency is not mentioned in the above list and you feel that you meet the entry-level requirements, then please contact BSAC Thailand Technical Department.

Course Aims:

The BSAC entry-level course; the BSAC Ocean Diver, has a similar course syllabus to other agencies courses. However, once the diver has trained beyond this level, the theory and dive skills required for the higher BSAC grade are very different than the other agencies courses. There are many new topics and skills to learn. These new elements range from Staged Decompression Diving, Chartwork and navigation to running Distance Lines, recovering and moving objects underwater, Oxygen Administration and Advanced Dive planning etc.

This course is therefore designed to introduce the candidate to these new areas, before they go on and enroll onto the full Instructor program. As a BSAC Instructor you will be teaching such skills so it is important that you understand these new subjects in depth before trying to teach them.

Course duration:

Dive Leader Crossover Course Contents

Theory Lessons

The theory sessions start with a series of 5 lessons, which are all related to Oxygen Administration for diver and diving related injury topics. These lessons are followed by a lesson on dive planning. In this lesson, we look at how to locate new dive sites with the use of sea charts. We look at tidal predictions, calculating actual depths of the site and what type of underwater topography and seabed compositions are likely to be found on the site.

We then look at the role of the Dive Manager who is expected to be highly knowledgeable in all areas of the dive planning process. As on any dive, gas requirements for the dive is crucial. So we will also cover how to plan the gas needed to complete the entire dive, plus how much gas you will need in reserve for emergency. The theory lesson finishes with a look at some weather forecasting considerations, which is one of the most important part s of your dive plan.

Practical Lessons

This session is aimed at introducing you to some new dive skills. Skills that you may have not already covered within your previous dive agency. In total there are 3 dives in which the following skills will be covered.

Dive 1 – will cover Lifting a Shotline with the use of a lift bag. Once the object has been lifted you will then safely move the shot and relocate it to another location on the site. In this lesson you will demonstrate your ability to not only using a lift bag and control the bags buoyancy but to also demonstrate your navigation or pilotage skills by moving the object on a heading given by the instructor.

Dive 2 - will introduce you to some alternative rescue and rescue lifting techniques. These technical skills are almost certainly different to those covered in other agencies syllabuses.

Dive 3 - On this last dive you will learn the different techniques for deploying a Delayed Surface Marker Buoy DSMB. This is an important skill to master when conducting decompression dives. There are a number of deployment techniques to be used depending on what dive you are conducting.

On completion of these lessons you will then be rated as a BSAC Dive Leader and will be eligible to take the Instructor program, starting with the IFC.